Further Education
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-04787, in the name of Liz Smith, on education. Members who wish to speak in the debate should press their request-to-speak buttons now. I advise all members at the outset that time is extremely tight today, so we will hold you to your time. Regrettably, some members who wish to take part in the debate will be unable to do so. I ask for the co-operation of all members.
I call Liz Smith to speak to and move the motion. Ms Smith, you have 14 minutes.
14:41
Last Friday, several members were privileged to attend the Scottish Council for Development and Industry awards dinner at the magnificent new Emirates arena in Glasgow, at which Dr Madeleine Albright, the former United States Secretary of State, was the guest speaker. It was a remarkable speech from a remarkable woman. Asked to set out the challenges ahead and how she thought Scottish businesses and industry should respond, she said that understanding globalisation is the key and no more so than in the sphere of education. We must, she said, question what we are training our young people for and why. Her words provide a convenient backdrop to the debate on widening access to our colleges and why we, on this side of the chamber, contend that that overall ambition is being seriously compromised by the misplaced focus of Scottish Government policy.
The debate—which I hope will soon be followed by another debate about widening access to universities—will examine the crucial role that our colleges can play in a fast-changing global economy to help Scotland to stay ahead of the game in the manner suggested by Dr Albright. Notwithstanding our acceptance of the very tight financial constraints affecting many economies, we urge the Scottish Government to refocus its budget priorities and tackle head-on the criticism that has been levelled at the Government from so many sources in education, business and industry.
I take up specifically the comment from Jeremy Peat of the David Hume Institute that
“change must not be at the cost of the crucial role the colleges play in providing opportunities to many from diverse parts of society”.
In this chamber and in several portfolio and cross-party committees, we have been reminded many times by experts in the sector that further education reaches parts of the population that other educational institutions do not and that it has an increasing reputation for inspiring those groups towards more meaningful employment, including a greater interest in successful entrepreneurial activity.
The role of our colleges is clear. So, too, is the Scottish Conservatives’ respect for all the staff and students who are involved. First, in educational terms, it is clear that our colleges want to move away from an outdated system in which institutions matter more than people. They want to move away from being the institutions that the public often labelled—simplistically—as being in between schools and universities. They want to ensure that their provision of education is responsive to the needs of their local economies as well as to the needs of the national economy, to which they have contributed to the tune of 1 per cent of gross domestic product over eight years. They want better articulation—a point that will be developed by my colleague Mary Scanlon—and they want to provide greater flexibility so that college education really is open to a wider cross-section of society. It is on that point that I want to dwell because, in my book, it is that greater flexibility that matters so much to the modern economy and which provides colleges with their important social function to widen access and reduce inequalities.
Colleges have come a long way in recent years in making themselves more responsive to the needs of a much more diverse working population; to the needs of mature, part-time and disabled students; to the needs of women students with families; to the needs of younger students from groups for whom, in days past, a college education would have been only a pipe dream; and to the needs of the ethnic minority groups who were, at one time, completely left behind.
We must not forget the fact that out of the 300,000 or so total learners at college, about 75,000 are full time, which clearly means that the majority are part time. Fifty-four per cent of college students are women; the comparable figure in secondary schools is 49 per cent. Only 38 per cent of college students are in the 16 to 24-year-old age group, which many people tend to think of as the traditional student age, and 25 per cent come from the more deprived communities.
John Henderson, chief executive of Scotland’s Colleges, said:
“One of the enormous strengths of our college system is its ability to cater for a diverse range of students at different times in their lives.”
He went on to say that the policy should reflect that, and that the allocation of Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council money must ensure that no one group is disadvantaged when it comes to aspiring to a college education. He pointed out that per head spending in further education is traditionally lower than it is in higher education and secondary education, and that the college sector, which derives a much greater percentage of its funding from the public purse is, obviously, more susceptible to budget cuts.
As members know, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning has announced that he is keen on college audits. Let me assist him with that. First—notwithstanding the fact that there are many people, including many members of the Education and Culture Committee and its recent witnesses, who have found it exceedingly difficult to pick their way through the unintelligibility of some of the data that has been presented to us as we scrutinise the current budget—is the issue of the overall college budget spend.
We acknowledge that there are cuts to the overall Scottish budget and that, by definition, the Scottish Government has to make cuts—we accept that, and we acknowledge that some of those decisions are difficult. However, let us be clear: the decisions about where priority spending should be within Scottish education are entirely a matter for the Scottish Government. The college sector, many businesses across Scotland and the Opposition parties have all combined to send a strong message to the Scottish Government that it is unacceptable that our colleges have been the target of such significant cuts. As the Labour Party amendment rightly points out, those cuts mean that college funding over the next three years is set to be reduced by a quarter—that was central to the Audit Scotland report and its concerns that such cuts present major challenges to the entire sector.
Most important, there has been a disproportionate cut to teaching budgets—the very budgets that the college sector tells us make the greatest difference to the quality of coursework that is on offer in our colleges. That means, despite a £24 million transfer from the employability fund to colleges—we are waiting to hear the detail of that—there will be a 15.8 per cent cut to teaching budgets in academic year 2012-13 compared with 2010-11, which means that £73 million will be lost. We know that 2,300 jobs have been lost in the sector since 2009-10 and that some college courses have been cut and some have disappeared altogether. We are being told by many students and staff that class sizes are likely to grow in order to cope, which is not the best advert for a sector that has worked so hard to improve standards and which is striving to become more flexible, not less. It is not surprising that the sector now has a major bone of contention with the Scottish Government because it does not believe that that is any of its fault.
Secondly, on the question of participation, we know that the number of female learners has declined by more than 26 per cent since academic year 2006-07, and, although some of that can be explained by demographic changes, that is by no means the whole story. Worse still, when we compare that with what has happened to male student numbers, we find that it is twice that rate of decline. Much of the reason for that is the fact that the Scottish Government has chosen to prioritise full-time courses for younger students because of the youth unemployment situation. Indeed, the First Minister said in the chamber last week that that was the priority because full-time places are more likely to lead to jobs. That is perhaps not the best message that the First Minister has ever sent out.
We know that women students are much more likely to want to take up evening or weekend courses, which are structured to suit the changing demands of women and their families, and which are the very kind of courses that were designed to encourage more women to take up college places so that they could enter the labour market.
At this point, I want to mention the issue of mobility. One of the huge advantages of colleges has been their local dimension and their ability to provide for those who do not have the resources to travel longer distances. That is particularly true of women who have busy lives with their families. How sad it would be if we saw a reversal of the good work in that area.
So far, the Scottish Government has not come back with many public rebuttals, except to say that it has laid on more childcare facilities. It has, but that will not be much good if the college places are not there in the first place.
What do we make of the situation for those students for whom college education was previously only a pipe dream, who clearly form a large part of the 16-to-19 initiative that the Scottish Government claims is a priority and for whom colleges such as John Wheatley College have been doing excellent work? They are the very students who need greater support, whether through one-to-one or small-group attention, or through help with their coursework, which they are often less able to do on their own.
It is my firm understanding that one of the key rationales behind regionalisation was to ensure that there was greater scope for flexibility so that diverse needs would be catered for. I have heard the cabinet secretary say several times that he wants college reform to remove what he describes as the dreadful Thatcherite structures that led to far too much autonomy and overlap of course provision. If his plans to withdraw greater autonomy mean that too many courses are shut down, it is little wonder that he is now on the receiving end of the sharpest criticism. Week by week, we are getting evidence that there are problems. At Carnegie College, for example, three courses—one of which was at higher national diploma level—have gone and, at Inverness College, there are now not enough supervisors to cope with some technical course provision, so how on earth can the Scottish Government argue that its policies are widening access? I do not understand the Government’s reason for that approach, and I suggest that the colleges—which have warned the Government time after time of the folly of its position—do not, either.
On that note, over the past 24 hours, we have seen extraordinarily heated exchanges between a college chair—who has now resigned—and the cabinet secretary. None of us in the chamber, except the cabinet secretary, is in a position to know the full facts about the management of the meeting in question and—perhaps even more important—about what communications have taken place. However, given the claims and counterclaims that now exist, which I suggest have been around for some time in the sector, about allegations of cultural bullying from the cabinet secretary, I suggest that there is now a case to answer and that the cabinet secretary should be called before the Education and Culture Committee.
I heard the committee’s convener say this morning that he does not believe that there is any need for that, but I think that there are many members who beg to differ. If I may say so, I do not consider it appropriate for the convener of any parliamentary committee—who may, after all, have to act as arbiter on such a matter—to be judge and jury at the same time. Any convener’s first responsibility is to his or her committee. That is even more important when there is a majority Government.
As far as I am concerned, the facts speak for themselves—
What facts?
There are plenty of facts, and I have given members quite a lot of them.
This is a very serious matter. I suggest that all the Opposition parties and many parts of Scotland recognise that. Above all, the college sector is crying out for help because there are misplaced priorities. The Government must acknowledge that.
I move,
That the Parliament recognises the significant economic and social benefits of extending further education opportunities to a wider cross-section of society; applauds the initiatives of Scotland’s colleges to put in place policies that will widen access at the same time as raising academic achievement; deplores the fact that these initiatives are being heavily compromised by the Scottish Government’s extensive cuts to college budgets, and calls on the Scottish Government to refocus its budget priorities to redress this situation at a time when youth unemployment in Scotland is at a particularly high level.
14:55
Apart from the last minute of the speech by Liz Smith, I commend her for bringing the motion to the chamber. The measured tone in which she addressed the issue was entirely appropriate. I have profound differences with her on the issue, which I will outline, along with the strong reasons why we needed reform in the sector and the strong reasons why that reform is producing and will produce the results that we need. I regret that Liz Smith lapsed into the negativity that she did in her last minute.
I expect a great deal of negativity from Labour members—indeed, I woke up this morning to hear some extraordinary negativity on the radio and to read it in the newspapers. An astonishing accusation was made. I do not know whether members know this, but according to Claire Baker it is a Scottish Government minister who is responsible for the ash dieback disease. I have looked it up and I discover that it is actually caused by a fungus on fruited bodies, that infected trees die and that it is spread on clothing, on footwear or by vehicles from Europe. However, according to Labour it is the Scottish National Party’s fault.
Let us focus on the realities of college funding and delivery and then we might make progress, because there is a debate to be had. I believe that the college sector should deliver for Scotland—the college sector that we inherited did not deliver for Scotland. The college sector failed five groups of people and it is important to recognise that. First, it failed employers because the outcomes of the courses were not focused on employment. There were, bluntly, too many hobby courses and far too few courses were focused on employment.
The sector failed those who worked in the college sector because the balkanisation of the sector, with 42 different sets of terms and conditions, allowed division. It requires a single set of terms and conditions. It failed local authorities that wanted to join up with the college sector and were not allowed to do so—indeed, in some areas they were not allowed to do so by a statute that was put in place in 1992. It failed communities because many of the college boards were self-perpetuating. There was no fresh blood in them and those boards were not reflective of the wider communities.
Finally—most important of all—the sector failed students. It was not meeting the objectives that students had; it was not providing the learner journey that they needed; it was not producing clear progression routes; and it was not producing better links to schools, universities and employers.
We needed a reform that produced colleges of scale and efficiency, focusing on the needs of the economy. That is what I said a year ago when I introduced the reform process, that is what we are focused on now and that is what we have had overwhelming support for in the college sector.
I find it a surprising argument from a Conservative to say that we should have continued with a sector in which there was clear evidence of duplication and of inefficiency and waste. That is the argument that I have heard, and it is utterly wrong.
Will the member give way?
No. I want to make progress, Mr Findlay, please.
The sector could perform better and it will perform better. It can have confident learners leaving college with the right qualifications. We need, and we have had already, a 9 per cent increase in full-time learners at advanced level. We have more intensive full-time courses delivering high-level skills. Completion rates are now rising—they were unacceptably low—because we have undertaken these reforms and we are in the process of creating one of the most responsive college sectors in the world. Scotland is a hotbed—
Liz Smith rose—
One moment, please.
Scotland is a hotbed of potential and talent and the changes will allow that talent to thrive.
I accept that access is of key importance and I welcome scrutiny on access. Colleges are open to all, regardless of background, as indeed is the whole of Scottish education—although proposals from the Tories and indeed from Labour would stop that happening, as we know from evidence south of the border.
We have kept the student support budget at a record £95.6 million for the second year running.
The cabinet secretary talks about widening access. What is the situation for adult learners with learning difficulties who are trying to access college? How many courses have gone?
I have made it clear in my discussions with the sector, as has the Scottish funding council, that we want to ensure that the widest range of students is retained, and the outcome agreements can take care of that. I will come on to that in a moment.
We have kept the student support budget at a record level. Unfortunately, access has been subjected to meaningless statements and baseless assertions. Saying that there is no room for young people in Scottish education is a false message to them, but that message is going out from some members. I will say why.
Let us start with headcount. We must understand that headcount statistics are volatile. Headcount is a very poor measure. It fluctuates, depending not on funding, but on how colleges spread teaching activity because of their local focus. The most accurate measure is and always has been full-time equivalent student numbers. Unlike in universities or schools, around three quarters of college students were, until recently, part time. If we consider full-time equivalent numbers expressed in that way, we have maintained student numbers. We have also maintained the volume of teaching.
The fixation on headcount has another problem, as it says that quality is not relevant, and job prospects and key employment skills are not the priority—rather, it is just about keeping numbers high. That is a never-mind-the-quality-feel-the-width approach. My opponents appear unconcerned about the type of head that is counted. They put together someone on an intensive full-time engineering course, which is one head, and someone on a short recreational course, which is another head. A college’s value cannot be determined by the speed with which it wheels large numbers in and large numbers out. We have to end that merry-go-round. That is what employers and others have told me, and that is what we are trying to do.
I do not in any way dispute the complexity of much of the analysis when it comes to college spend. However, does the cabinet secretary acknowledge that it has been seriously compromised this year, and that that has been reflected by witnesses at the Education and Culture Committee, because there is no consistency in how we measure the figures?
No, I do not accept that. I said to Liz Smith in the committee when she asked me that question that the figures are quite clear on where we are. Where we are is quite clear from the baseline figures, and the additional money that we have added in every single year is quite clear. We are going through a complex process of change, but we are focused on getting the maximum value for public money. I would have thought that we would have support for that activity across the chamber.
I listened to what the cabinet secretary said in response to Neil Findlay and to the Conservatives. The Auditor General for Scotland’s report from last month said:
“The expected benefits and costs of the Scottish Government’s reform plans are unclear”.
The Government has not published a quantified assessment of the costs of reforms or the expected benefits. If the Auditor General does not know the costs or expected benefits and an assessment has not been published, how does the cabinet secretary expect us to know them?
I am very fond of Mary Scanlon, but she really should have been at the meeting at which that matter was discussed. It was quite clear that we are taking forward the answers to those very questions, as the sector is. There are real answers to those questions in the outcome agreement. If Mary Scanlon would like to meet me to discuss the college sector, I would be delighted to discuss that with her.
We cannot focus on “facts” that are not true or misleading statistics, but we can focus on what colleges are doing. That is why the outcome agreements are so important. We are not only putting in place a reformed sector; we are putting in place a very clear understanding of what that sector does. It delivers for the whole of Scotland. The message to young people is that opportunity exists for them. Young people have many opportunities, and young people are in the opportunities for all scheme.
I want to conclude on that issue, as it is very significant. The debate is being handled as if colleges are the only thing for young people across Scotland. That is another fallacy that is being peddled. I am very proud of the fact that the Government has put in place the opportunities for all scheme, which says that every young person will have a job, a place in education or a place in training. That gives the lie to almost everything that we will hear from Opposition parties this afternoon.
There is an opportunity for every young person. That has never been guaranteed in Scotland before. We have made the offer of an opportunity for every young person during the worst economic crisis in living memory and the cuts that Labour started and Liberals and the Tories have progressed. We are delivering it in a variety of ways through Skills Development Scotland and the colleges, and through a reformed college sector, which is the sector that will deliver for the future of Scotland—that is absolutely essential.
During the process of the past year, I had hoped that people would read the documentation, look at what is taking place, see the enthusiasm in the sector for constructive change and go with that change. Regrettably and unfortunately, all that the Opposition parties can do is resist change. That is true conservatism from the Conservatives and true conservatism, as ever, from Labour in Scotland. The reality is that we are delivering the change that is needed in Scotland. I hope that members might one day wake up and back that.
I move amendment S4M-04787.2, to leave out from “extending” to end and insert:
“the Scottish Government’s proposals for the reform of a college sector that has been neglected for far too long by previous administrations; welcomes in particular the regionalisation of the sector, leading to the creation of new institutions of significant scale, reputation and efficiency that are better able to identify and address the skills needs of the regional economy, and further recognises the guarantee, unique in these islands, that the Scottish Government has given to every 16 to 19-year-old not already in education, employment or training, of an offer of a place in learning or training.”
15:05
It is just not true that members in this chamber are opposed to change. Scottish Labour does welcome some of the changes that are being discussed for Scotland’s colleges, and there is undoubtedly an argument for ensuring that Scotland’s colleges are fit for the challenges of the 21st century. However, at issue is how we bring about change and whether we dictate and impose, or discuss and move forward together. What we have seen from the cabinet secretary and the Government is dictation, dictatorship, imposition and a failure to discuss and to take people with them. [Interruption.]
The SNP members can sit and name call and catcall, but they cannot deny—
That is what you do.
Excuse me, but I said nothing during the cabinet secretary’s speech, although others may have done so. However, if SNP members want to shout and bawl because they know that the cabinet secretary is on dodgy ground, that is fine.
The fact is that Scotland’s colleges can and should improve—there is no doubt about that. However, it is wrong to suggest that everything that went before was, as the cabinet secretary seemed to suggest, a failure. Many thousands of people across Scotland have benefited from the excellence that is delivered by Scotland’s colleges, including some people in this chamber, whose lives have been transformed by those colleges. It is therefore wrong to rubbish the past simply to try to persuade for the future.
If there was ever a time when we needed colleges, it is surely now, more than ever before, when there is rising unemployment and the number of unemployed young people is at nearly 100,000. The latest statistics show that Scottish unemployment has risen by 4,000 from the previous quarter, while United Kingdom unemployment fell. They show that employment has fallen by 27,000 from the previous quarter, while UK employment rose, and that youth unemployment rose sharply over the previous quarter, increasing by 10,000 among 16 to 24-year-olds. Now, more than ever, we need Scotland’s colleges for our young people.
However, we also need them for the workers who are facing redundancy at Hall’s of Broxburn and for the workers in Glasgow, East Kilbride and across Scotland who have to retrain and to rethink their future. That is why we need Scotland’s colleges and why we need to build on the excellence that they deliver.
We know that Scotland’s colleges have a fantastic record in reaching out and helping people who would otherwise be marginalised in Scottish education and, indeed, in Scottish life. Colleges can give people chances that they would otherwise never have. How can we expect our colleges to transform and to rise to those challenges when they face unprecedented cuts in their budgets? People talk about smoke and mirrors and about lies, dammed lies and statistics, but what we have heard from this cabinet secretary is an absolute failure to face up to the facts and to admit, for once, that he is wrong and that Audit Scotland is right. Is he trying to suggest to members that Audit Scotland—a body that has the respect of just about every section of Scottish public life—does not know what it is talking about and does not know the true facts? Audit Scotland said that there is a 24 per cent cut over the spending review period. That is the reality.
How can colleges cope when budgets are falling, they have fewer staff, courses are being cut and there are fewer places? We know that there are waiting lists. The cabinet secretary had the chance to accept that during parliamentary questions on education and lifelong learning, when he was asked three times to face up to the issue, but he said:
“the concept of waiting lists ... is utterly false.”—[Official Report, 24 October 2012; c 12504.]
Yet again, Scotland’s colleges are completely wrong and he is completely right.
The fact is that there are waiting lists. If the concept is utterly false, why is there an audit of something that is utterly false? That is bizarre. We still do not know who is carrying out the audit or what the terms of reference are. We do not know what is being done or how. Yet again, the cabinet secretary is hiding the facts and the process and is trying to distort and confuse the issue. The cabinet secretary’s premise is based on that philosophy.
I do not have time to go into the detail of what happened at Stow College. It is unfortunate that the incident has painted the cabinet secretary in a bad light. He used unacceptable tactics to get his way; he tried to intimidate when discussion would have been far better. The meeting in question was not private. I googled it this afternoon and was able to get the details of everything that the cabinet secretary said. I was able to get the details of everyone who spoke and the answers that they were given. I know exactly what went on during the meeting. It was no secret meeting. Whether the man was right or wrong to record it, the response from the cabinet secretary has been shameful. He has abused his position and has let himself and Parliament down by his actions.
I move amendment S4M-04787.1, to insert at end:
“, and notes the recent Audit Scotland report that states that college funding is set to be reduced by a quarter over the next three years and that there are major challenges ahead.”
15:12
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in a debate on the important subject of further education.
I will start with facts about what is happening in Scotland. The Scottish Government is delivering the best student support package in the UK. Students in Scotland who are 18 or over can apply for a maintenance bursary of up to £89.07 per week, and from next year the Scottish Government is ensuring that the most vulnerable students will be helped, by providing a minimum income of £7,250 per year in student support.
The Scottish Government has retained the education maintenance allowance, which has been scrapped down south. Liam Burns, the president of the National Union of Students, said of the UK Government changes to EMA:
“Further cutting support for the poorest college students, at a time when job and study opportunities are few and far between, is a massive mistake. Many in the Government claim EMA was simply an unnecessary incentive. It was nothing of the sort. Many of the poorest students rely on small regular payments to cover costs like travel, food and books that allow them to stay in education and improve their life chances. EMA represented a lifeline for the poorest students.”
I agree with Liam Burns. EMA is a valued and valuable support mechanism, but the Tory-Lib Dem coalition scrapped it.
The member said that he agrees with Liam Burns. What did Liam Burns have to say about the college cuts that the Scottish Government is imposing?
I presume that because Gavin Brown is asking the question he does not know what Liam Burns said about the college cuts. The Education and Culture Committee will produce a fair, balanced and robust report on the Government’s budget, which will take account of all the evidence that we received.
In 2014-15, further education spending in Scotland will be about £91 per head, compared with around £62 per head in England. There is a huge gap; Scotland will spend about a third more per head than will be spent down south.
John Henderson, the chief executive of Scotland’s Colleges, indicated his support for the student support package that the Scottish Government is introducing. He said:
“This is a hugely positive step from the Scottish Government. The 40,000 students studying at higher education level in colleges across Scotland will benefit greatly from this support package, and I am sure it will encourage more students from low-income backgrounds to think about signing up to a higher education course.”
I remind members of the Opposition parties in the chamber that the SNP is the only major party in Scotland never to have voted for tuition fees. The Labour Party has been all over the place on that issue, but it now has a clear position; it is telling the young people of Scotland and their families that we cannot afford free education but can afford to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on weapons of mass destruction. That is the Labour Party position, and it is appalling.
Although I applaud the fact that the Tories have a stated aim of extending further education opportunities to a wider cross-section of society, it is hard to see how the introduction of tuition fees, which have been imposed on students in England by the coalition, could foster such an aim.
University and College Admissions Service figures show that Scotland is the only part of the UK in which there has been a rise in university and college admissions. Admissions have gone up a little bit in Scotland, but they have gone down by almost 8 per cent in England in one year. While that has been going on down south, the SNP Government has been investing some £4.7 billion in colleges—40 per cent more than during the two terms of the previous Administration—in the face of swingeing cuts from Westminster. In contrast, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition is cutting the budget for further education by £1.1 billion over the spending review period. It has scrapped the education maintenance allowance, which—as I mentioned earlier—provides support to the poorest students, and students in England have to pay tuition fees.
Much has been said about the £9,000 fees at some English universities, but not much has been said about the fees for college courses, so I will put that right. Let us look at what is happening to full-time college students in England. There are 187 further education colleges with access agreements that are funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England that have full-time undergraduate provision. The average student fee at further education colleges south of the border in 2013-14 will be an estimated £6,429.
Will Stewart Maxwell take an intervention?
I will just finish this point, and then I will let Liz Smith in.
For further education colleges with access agreements, the average fee for a full-time student from 2013-14 is estimated to be £6,995, up from £6,836 in 2012-13. Figures from the Office for Fair Access show that, for the academic year 2013-14, 28 further education colleges south of the border have already been given permission to charge fees of more than £6,000 per year for full-time students and £4,500 per year for part-time students. How does that equate to fair access for students across the UK? In Scotland, students pay no fees, but instead concentrate on acquiring education, not debt.
There are cuts, as I said in my speech. What is at issue is that the Scottish Government’s priorities in Scotland, for which it is entirely responsible, are misplaced because colleges are having to bear the brunt. Does Stewart Maxwell accept that?
No, I do not accept that. I fail to understand what Liz Smith would cut instead. Is she making it clear that she would introduce the tuition fees that I just mentioned for both university and college students? If that is the Conservative position, I am glad that she has made it clear.
The Scottish Government recognises that people and the skills that they acquire are Scotland’s most valuable resource. That is why the Government has ensured that access to education is based on the ability to learn, and not—as is increasingly the case in England and Wales—the ability to pay.
The Tories’ attack on the Scottish Government is without credibility, and it is time that the Opposition parties in the chamber rallied round to help to protect Scotland’s young people from the onslaught of austerity that is coming from the UK Government.
15:18
I thank Liz Smith for bringing the debate to the chamber. I am pleased to have the opportunity to represent the concerns of many students in Glasgow about funding and support for access to further education.
For so many young people, a college education is both an opportunity to develop key life skills and a route into employment. With one in four young people out of work, it is important that we offer college courses that are relevant to their future working lives and access routes that enable people from all backgrounds to achieve their educational goals.
Tragically, the Scottish Government is making it harder for young people to progress into further education by cutting college budgets, and it is penalising those—such as mothers and young carers—who require more flexible part-time studies by charging them to access those courses.
The recent Audit Scotland report noted a 24 per cent cut in college budgets over the spending review period, and it is simply disingenuous of the cabinet secretary to claim that that will result in anything but fewer places for applicants from the most disadvantaged of backgrounds.
Only a few weeks ago, the cabinet secretary claimed that there were no waiting lists for college places in Scotland. He boasted that that information did not exist because there were still spaces left for applicants to further education. Only a week later, The Herald was able to establish that more than 21,000 individuals are on waiting lists and, subsequently, are without a place on a course of their choice.
I do not recognise the allegation that I said that there was no waiting list. I said that waiting list figures could not be relied on because they do not tell us—[Interruption.] If I could continue, Presiding Officer—the figures do not reflect what is taking place.
The member should also note that The Herald said that the 21,000 figure could not be relied on, so she should be cautious about using it. That is in The Herald story.
If the cabinet secretary is saying that the figure of more than 21,000 is not to be relied on, he should note that the specific figure in the article was 21,548. The cabinet secretary also said that
“the concept of waiting lists ... is utterly false.”—[Official Report, 24 October 2012; c 12504.]
Those are the cabinet secretary’s words.
It is. [Interruption.]
I will continue, Presiding Officer.
This is the reality of the Scottish Government’s savage cuts to the further education sector in Scotland.
Another concerning consequence of the Scottish Government’s attack on colleges is the falling numbers of female students, who often rely on the availability of evening and weekend courses to balance family commitments and responsibilities. The Scottish Government is not supporting those courses and, as a result, women are disproportionately affected—and too often excluded altogether.
In a time of economic hardship when 25 per cent of young people are without employment, it is unbelievable that student numbers should have fallen by 70,000 in just two years. The cabinet secretary cannot explain why that has happened, but it is clear that his campaign of cuts against the further education sector is the source of that disastrous reality. Colleges are continuing to struggle against the challenges that they now face by implementing programmes to widen access and engage with their communities but, without proper support from the Scottish Government, the effects will be sadly limited.
Our further education sector has the potential to provide those from deprived and disadvantaged backgrounds with a high standard of education and equip them for future employment. However, as a result of poor resourcing, colleges are unable to provide the level of support and access to which they aspire. I ask the Scottish Government and the cabinet secretary seriously to consider re-evaluating their policies on the funding of further education, and to talk to the students and colleges in order to address the serious failings in the support that the Government is providing.
15:23
It is useful for us not to forget that the college reforms were intended to put learners at the centre. The college regionalisation model is about improving outcomes for our young people. With the implementation of outcome agreements with the regions, we will be able to monitor and take a view of progress for the first time.
The regionalisation model is also about widening access, which has already been discussed, improved articulation from further to higher education, and our guarantee to young people of a place in training, education or employment. That is why the modern apprenticeship scheme has been expanded to more than 25,000 modern apprentices, and we are also looking towards an advanced apprenticeship framework to help employers to develop staff all the way through to degree level.
Liz Smith and Anne McTaggart have mentioned the drop in female participation in colleges. It is relevant to mention that the number of females who are undertaking modern apprenticeships has increased by 16 per cent.
The debate is all about the Government’s priorities, at the heart of which is improved student support. In response to the spending review, Robin Parker of the NUS said:
“At the last election the Scottish Government committed to increase student support, protect places at college and university, and to rule out tuition fees.
This budget confirms that the Scottish Government have listened to students in Scotland, with proposals for a £7000 minimum income for the poorest students, the protection of the EMA for young students and pupils, and the confirmation of plans to keep education free of tuition fees and to increase funds for universities to match funding with ... England.
Taken together these proposals are a major step in the right direction towards making access to education in Scotland fairer.”
How does the member explain why 100,000 members of Robin Parker’s organisation contacted MSPs last year to complain about the Scottish Government’s policy on colleges?
That figure is widely disputed, but I am happy to take the quote from Robin Parker, who fully supports the proposals.
Robin Parker mentioned the vital EMA, to which Stewart Maxwell referred. Of course, the EMA has been cut south of the border, and there has been a 32 per cent cut in college budgets there, so it is somewhat ironic that the Conservatives have chosen to bring their motion to this chamber.
If the debate is about priorities, one of the Scottish Government’s priorities has been to give all Scotland-domiciled undergraduates a minimum income guarantee of £7,250 for the first time.
The minimum income guarantee includes loans. I do not know whether, like me, the member has a mortgage. My mortgage is not part of my income, so why are loans considered to be part of students’ income?
The minimum income guarantee has been welcomed by the NUS and it is certainly more welcome than the back-door tuition fees that Hugh Henry’s party introduced.
The Conservative motion
“calls on the Scottish Government to refocus its budget priorities”,
but which budgets do the Conservatives suggest that we should “refocus” money from? It is not principled to demand spending without recognising that the Conservative-Lib Dem Government has inflicted cumulative cuts in Scotland’s budget of £10.4 billion in real terms over four years—£6.7 billion in cuts to the revenue budget and £3.7 billion in cuts to the capital budget.
To maintain support for students, the SNP Government has increased baseline college support by 25 per cent since 2007, up to £84.2 million. In 2013-14, the Government is allocating an additional £11.4 million to ensure that college student bursary budgets are maintained at more than £95 million. That represents over 40 per cent more than was provided when Johann Lamont was a Scottish Executive minister.
Central Scotland has many outstanding colleges and learning environments of the highest quality, thanks to the investment that has been made in our colleges in recent years. Coatbridge College is about to open a brand-new spectacular business and conference centre and, at its summer celebration, it welcomed staff and families to its newly refurbished campus.
I will finish with a quote from the David Hume Institute’s report “Further Education, the Scottish Labour Market and the Wider Economy”. It said:
“The key conclusion ... is that Further Education Colleges contain a broader mix of students in terms of age, they have a higher proportion of disabled”
students
“and students from poorer backgrounds than at HE and a more flexible learning route for their students suggesting that”
our further education colleges
“play an important role in promoting social inclusion.”
15:30
In my professional life before I came to the Parliament, I was a training consultant and also an external verifier for the Scottish Qualifications Authority. Most of my career was spent working with people to help them to train for employment and improve their skills, but I also assessed training providers and monitored how they delivered qualifications. My career took me to colleges all over Scotland, and over the past 18 months I have been working with colleges in my region, listening to them as they go through this period of transition, helping them to find valuable work experience opportunities and getting them more involved in the community.
I am every bit as aware of the sector’s shortcomings as I am of its strengths and achievements. I agree that reform is needed and I welcome a sharper focus on employment. I hope that colleges in every part of Scotland will build meaningful partnerships with employers and other providers in their local communities, guiding us back towards full employment. However, the good work that our colleges do and that the Scottish Government wants them to do is being undermined because of the spending reductions, which are entirely disproportionate.
Not only were colleges hit hard in last year’s budget, but the pressures are on-going. Scotland’s Colleges has warned members of a cut in the teaching grant of almost £73 million since 2010-11, and the grant is expected to fall again next year. There is a serious drive for efficiency in the sector, but cuts of almost 16 per cent in such a short period cannot be delivered through efficiencies. The structural changes that colleges are going through, which are leading to mergers in some parts of the country and a federation of colleges in Lanarkshire, are expected to deliver long-term savings, but there can be no doubt that they present an immediate challenge.
We have heard today about Audit Scotland’s report, and I agree that we need to know where the savings are to be found and exactly how they are to be delivered. However, we also need to know much more about how the reforms and the Government’s budget decisions will impact on those who depend the most on the opportunities that a college education can provide.
More than 30 per cent of college students come from the most deprived parts of Scotland. The majority are women, at a time when women’s employment has been hit hard by the recession, and the average age of male college students is just 20 at a time when the country faces a crisis of youth employment. My fear is that the rush to reform at the same time as budgets are being slashed so severely will compromise provision for those who need it most, when they need it most.
Earlier this year, the Scottish Government announced a new employability fund, transferring £24 million from the Scottish funding council to SDS to replace the new college learning programme. In my experience, that programme has been one of the most positive and interesting initiatives to be developed in response to the youth jobs crisis in Scotland. It consists of 192 hours of college learning and 192 hours of work experience, with an employability certificate at the end of the course and, for some learners, the opportunity to progress into work.
The programme depends in many ways on the participation of employers who are willing to offer placements. Working with South Lanarkshire College, I secured the participation of First Bus and ScotRail, and right now young people in my region are going through job-focused employability courses. I am looking forward to meeting the current group of students at the end of the course, so that they can tell me about their experiences and I can take a balanced view but, with the introduction of the employability fund, it looks as if changes are being made before the programme has had a chance to bed in. I ask the Scottish Government to explain why the programme has changed so soon, what the differences between the new college learning programme and the employability fund will be, and how those positive initiatives are affected by the wider programme of college reforms.
Scotland’s colleges are under pressure as never before just when they are needed the most. Their work has never been so vital, yet their future has never been so unclear. The message that goes out from the Parliament today must be that we recognise our colleges’ contribution and that we will support them and their students through these tough times.
15:34
Despite the cuts that have been passed down from Westminster, the Scottish Government is investing in colleges and bringing about reform to strengthen the sector and its skills provision. The reality is that it is investing in our young people at a time when other Governments in the UK are not.
A number of key points have already been highlighted. On the information provided by Scottish colleges, the fact is that, as the Education and Culture Committee discovered during its evidence taking, there were some problems with their figures. In the past, they have even lost 10,000 students. They apologised for doing so, but they still got their figures wrong. As a result, I think that there should be an audit to put the issue to bed once and for all.
Just when we think the Scottish Tories cannot get any lower, they manage to do so. It is quite hypocritical of them to oppose college cuts when their UK colleagues are pursuing harsher cuts and an agenda of withdrawing public support from the further education sector. Indeed, the UK Government cut FE funding in England by 32.3 per cent in 2010-11. Despite the unprecedented cuts that the UK Government is passing down to Scotland, the Scottish Government is maintaining college student support at record levels, protecting student numbers in further education and maintaining full-time equivalent teaching activity. Those are important facts.
No one will be surprised to hear that there is a difference between the ideals of the Scottish Government and those of the Government at Westminster. As I have said, it was typically hypocritical of the Tories to discuss this matter when they are making such cuts down south. I also note that the UK Government, which is cutting FE funding, has control of its own budget while we do not have any control over our budget and the cuts being made to it.
I apologise to Mr Adam for bringing the debate back to Scotland, but does the member think that there is any logic to a college in Greenock merging with a college in his home town of Paisley and another college across the Clyde in Clydebank? If the cabinet secretary’s logic is sustainable, we might as well close all three and have a new college at the Erskine bridge.
My response to the member is: don’t ask me, ask the principals of those three colleges. Every one of them thinks that it is the best way forward. I certainly will not apologise for bringing the debate back to Scotland. I think that that is the way forward. The Scottish Government will continue to offer education to everyone, no matter their financial background; it is providing opportunities for all, not just for those who can afford them, which is what is happening down south. The UK Government’s further education budget will be cut by £1.1 billion over the spending review period, but the Tories here are asking for the Scottish Government to give some more money from its own limited budget without offering any suggestions on what they would do instead.
In evidence, Robin Parker, the president of the National Union of Students Scotland, said that he believed that the amount of financial assistance being offered to students was fantastic and that it is better than anything they are receiving down south. My committee colleagues will obviously admit that he made those comments, because they were there when he said them.
We must look at what we are doing and what is happening in Scotland. We are putting in place a strategic vision for Scotland’s future. With regard to training for jobs, Reid Kerr College in Paisley is training people for the new green energy boom, and Doosan Babcock in Renfrew, which produces much of the technology used in the renewables sector, will benefit from those young people when they leave college. Moreover, as part of its focused and strategic approach, Reid Kerr College recently invested £4 million in a state-of-the-art building for engineering and construction students.
In this ever-changing economic climate, there have been massive shifts from the manufacturing to the service sector, and it is important for colleges to lead the way in training people for jobs that are needed. Various representatives of the business sector made that very point in evidence to the committee.
There is a need for college reform; indeed, many people in the college sector believe that reform is the way forward. When I spoke recently to the principal of Reid Kerr College, Audrey Cumberford, she confirmed that it was the way forward for her college.
The issue of colleges’ reserves has been raised in various debates. As the recent Audit Scotland report makes clear, those reserves have risen from £98.9 million in 2006-07 to a total of £206 million at the end of 2011. When we look at those figures, we see that it is not just the Scottish Government that must pay, as the cabinet secretary quite rightly says.
For me, the important issue is how we take Scotland’s colleges forward, ensure that every 16 to 19-year-old gets an opportunity to enter work, education or training and build a solid foundation for the lives of Scotland’s young people. I have a vested interest because I have an 18-year-old daughter who is at college.
This debate has shown that there are stark differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK on the issue of education. I will take the cabinet secretary’s attitude towards education and how we deliver it any day of the week.
15:40
I, too, welcome today’s debate, congratulate Liz Smith on securing it and confirm that the Liberal Democrats will support the motion and Hugh Henry’s amendment at decision time. The Government’s amendment, however, is another matter. As well as deleting any reference to the benefits of
“extending further education opportunities to a wider cross-section of society”,
it has many of the hallmarks of the my way or the highway approach displayed by its author in recent days.
Before turning to the main issues in the debate, I first reflect on the astonishing events that have undermined confidence in the judgment of the education secretary and morale in Scotland’s college sector.
Mr Russell takes great pleasure in reminding us of his lack of power of direction over colleges. Although he rejoices in what he sees as the delicious irony that a Labour minister removed that power during Mr Russell’s sabbatical from Parliament, by summoning the chair of Stow College to a meeting last week and demanding his resignation, Mr Russell effectively assumed a power of direction by proxy. Mr Ramsay’s decision to step down simply confirms that. Mr Russell’s statement today claiming that it is a matter for the management board of Stow College and that he respects Mr Ramsay’s decision is beyond parody.
Claims of bullying by Mr Russell and a climate of fear throughout the college sector are now a consistent theme and not just on the basis of this week’s events. Ministers are quite within their rights to make clear what they expect to be delivered, by whom and in what timeframe. However, it is increasingly obvious that Mr Russell is unable to resist the temptation to micromanage every aspect of what goes on across his portfolio.
As a final comment—for now—on this sorry saga, I believe that the treatment of Kirk Ramsay and the wider concerns that it raises are ones that the Education and Culture Committee must investigate.
I focus the remainder of my remarks on some more general thoughts relating to the challenges facing our college sector and its contribution to our economy. Over the past 24 hours, the Education and Culture Committee has met twice to hammer out an agreement on its report on the Scottish Government’s budget. That does not in any way reflect disagreement among us about the importance of colleges, locally and nationally, in delivering, among other things, our shared ambition of sustainable economic growth in this country. It does, however, reflect the serious concerns that some of us have—concerns shared by colleges, the NUS and a range of other witnesses—that delivering such an ambition is potentially hamstrung by the Government’s approach to funding and reorganisation and other pressures on our colleges.
In addition, the way in which ministers are driving through the reform agenda and targeting spending in a sharply reducing budget risks a disproportionate impact on some of the groups to which colleges have been particularly adept at extending access and opportunities. That is one of the key themes picked up in the David Hume Institute report referred to by other members. As well as evidencing the economic value of colleges to the Scottish economy, the report underscores the success of our colleges in reaching, as the authors put it,
“parts of society that other elements of the education system find hard to reach.”
Yet, as the NUS points out, shifts in college participation away from part time to full time, from mature students to young students and from women to men have implications for participation and accessibility. That is particularly the case for older learners and women, who rely heavily on college courses to reskill and gain entry back into the labour market.
That role for colleges is vital. As the David Hume Institute report observes, by boosting skills, productivity and earnings, colleges contribute up to 1 per cent of GDP over an eight-year period. Despite that contribution, though, the Scottish Government has chosen significantly to reduce funding to the sector over the current spending review period. In evidence to the Education and Culture Committee, each of the college unions, Scotland’s Colleges and the NUS all warned of the potential impact that that could have on Scotland’s economic recovery. In its briefing for today’s debate, NUS Scotland draws attention to the planned £34 million cut in the colleges budget, saying:
“given the importance of colleges to the future of Scotland’s economy, we would urge the Scottish Government to consider ways in which the funding settlement for colleges can be improved ... to prevent the damage the proposed cuts could cause”.
In dismissing those concerns, Mr Russell points to regionalisation and the savings that he expects to be generated. However, again there is a problem, not with regionalisation per se but with the scale of any future savings and the timeframe in which they can be realised. Audit Scotland zeroes in on that concern in its recent report, which also makes clear the scale of the challenges facing the sector.
That is not to deny the need or even the desire for change, but, as Jeremy Peat has observed,
“change must not be at the cost of the crucial role the colleges play in providing opportunities to many from diverse parts of society; nor must the critical close relationships with local businesses be placed at risk.”
I hope that I have not ensured that Mr Peat is the next to be invited in for a cosy fireside chat with the cabinet secretary, but I believe that Mr Peat is right when he says:
“This is a difficult time for the sector, facing the challenges of coping with constraints on funding, implementing rapid and substantial organisational change and of playing a key role in meeting the government’s challenge to provide an opportunity for all”.
Perhaps Mr Peat may not want to answer his phone for a wee while yet.
I have no difficulty with many of the objectives set by the Government, but I am alarmed that, as well as those missing individual college chairs, Mr Russell is determined to dismiss any and all concerns that are raised by the college sector. Last year, Mr Russell was the last man in Government left defending the initial budget settlement as “full, final and fair”. I hope that he will not make the same mistake twice, but recent events prove that he is not a man who ever finds it easy to say, “I am wrong.”
15:46
Before I go into full flow, I want to reflect on some of Liam McArthur’s comments. I wonder what would happen to an MSP who made a recording of a committee session that was not being broadcast to the public and then passed that recording around. I think that such an MSP would quickly find himself in front of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, but that is a discussion for another day.
Listening to today’s opening speech from the Conservative spokesperson, I was waiting for a sentence that I knew was coming. The sentence started along the lines, “We accept that there is a cut to the budget, that of course the Scottish Government must make cuts and that there are difficult decisions,” and I was waiting for the key word “but” that was coming. It is like the “but” that appears in lines such as “Wind farms are good, but”, “Immigration is helpful, but we need to keep it down” and “Budgets are tight, but we still disagree with your spending and you should find more money.”
Liz Smith talked about voices being raised. However, the briefing papers that I was sent by NUS Scotland and Scotland’s Colleges included what I would present as being constructive engagement, or suggestions for ways to manage a difficult process of change, rather than head-on attacks on the process. I can also quote some great enthusiasts for the changes. Geoff Fenlon has said:
“These ... will present us all with a fantastic opportunity to create something new and exciting.”
John Burt of Angus College has said:
“We will continue to improve lives by realising our aspirations ... We look to the future with ambition in our eyes.”
However, I wonder whether for the Conservatives this is a case of “Do as we say, not as we do.” The Lib Dems are frequent proponents of hiding behind the fig-leaf of federalism, but the Conservative and Unionist Party is the same party here as south of the border. South of the border, the Conservatives are reducing FE college budgets by 32.3 per cent. These are difficult times, but the Audit Scotland report shows that here, between 2007 and 2011, college reserves went up from £98.9 million to £206.4 million. In these difficult times, we must look at all the options when solutions are thin on the ground. I know what the Conservative interpretation of all the options would be. It is right there in “Spending Review 2010”, which states:
“In further and higher education, the Government believes that there must be a shift away from public spending towards greater contributions from those that benefit most and who can afford to pay”.
If that is what the Conservatives wish to introduce in Scotland, they should be open and say so.
I am a little surprised by the Labour approach to defending the status quo, which is set out in the Further and Higher Education Act 1992.
Will Marco Biagi take an intervention?
In a moment.
I delved into the history and found that, in Scottish Affairs in 1995, Professor Walter Humes described those reforms thus:
“Underlying the reforms were certain recurring themes”
that
“had, of course, already been developed in England via NHS reforms and the privatisation of public services. Forsyth, unlike his colleagues at the Scottish Office, sought to advance swiftly and boldly along similar lines.”
If Mr Findlay and Mr Henry want to defend Thatcherite reforms from Michael Forsyth, they may do so.
Marco Biagi has just said that Labour opposes the reforms. He must have been sleeping when I made my speech, because I said clearly that we welcome change and that there has to be change. I do not know what he is talking about, although I suspect that neither does he.
If this is Mr Henry’s idea of supporting changes, I would hate to see his idea of opposing them.
Looking back at recent events, we find that it is not only the SNP that has considered changes. The Labour Government at UK level did so in the same way. The 2005 Foster report for the UK Government, “Realising the Potential: A review of the future role of further education colleges” pointed at a complex landscape with duplication issues and high drop-out rates. Interestingly, the author later said:
“Basically I am nobody’s dinner guest in FE any longer because I have been quite critical and challenging”.
Proposing changes does not tend to win people many friends. However, there is wide consensus on the value of FE. If we look at the situation, we find that the weighted student unit of measurement figure is stable and the full-time equivalent figures are stable. That is why the opponents of change have had to grapple around and use the head-count figure, which is misleading. Similarly, the critics have continually revised the statistics for the changes in funding, which leads to the suggestion that there is no stable consensus figure.
We face difficulties in all areas of the budget. Behind every decision, there is a human story. Today, all our constituents face challenges and the impacts of UK Government decisions in all walks of life, and we face the same here in Parliament. I agree with the Conservatives that there are no easy choices, but I hope that they will respect the reality of that statement; accept that the process is difficult and has been managed to the best of our ability; and support the Government in its endeavours.
15:52
I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests.
I am happy to accept the cabinet secretary’s offer for an update meeting on further education. If we can work together on Islay’s health services, I am sure that we can do the same on further education. I am pleased to speak to the motion in the name of my colleague Liz Smith. Further education colleges deserve our whole-hearted support and praise, given how much they have achieved in raising the bar on education and training opportunities since incorporation in 1992. Although I can see the benefits of some college mergers, the sector is one of Scotland’s great successes and is certainly not a sector of failure.
I substituted for Liz Smith at a recent committee meeting in which there was a discussion of further and higher education. Although I had done my homework, I found a plethora of figures and a confused account of the real cuts. When Neil Findlay asked Professor Jeremy Peat, Professor Gallacher and Paul Buchanan to give the committee one figure for the cuts, they were unable to do so, despite all their efforts. If eminent economists and college principals find it difficult to interpret the Government figures, that surely has to be worrying for the rest of us.
Jeremy Peat confirmed that
“FE is a priority for the economy”
and said that the cuts are putting
“severe strains on the FE sector at a time when there is a need to work at both ends of the labour market”.—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 25 September 2012; c 1443.]
That means those entering the market and preparing for work and the many who need readjustment training during their careers to participate in a difficult and complex economy.
The briefing paper for the debate from Scotland’s Colleges states that the teaching grant has fallen by £73 million—nearly 16 per cent—in the past two years. The Auditor General stated that there is a reduction of 24 per cent, in real terms, in the Government’s revenue grant support over the current spending review period against a background of increasing demand for college places and rising maintenance and energy costs. I add that there has also been a sixfold increase in pension costs.
We then see that £24 million has been transferred from the funding council’s FE budget to Skills Development Scotland. That transfer of funds from the colleges to SDS is now ring fenced for colleges but, as the Scotland’s Colleges paper tells us, as with so many other financial transactions in this confused landscape,
“No details of the fund have yet been provided.”
Why has money been taken out of the FE budget and given to SDS only to be ring fenced for FE?
Will the member give way?
Not just now. Could the funds not just have stayed in the FE budget instead of being taken out, put in another organisation and then filtered back into FE? It is hardly surprising that we are bamboozled by this.
The main concerns are the impact that the cuts will have on education and training opportunities and, more important, the widening of the inequalities gap, which many members have mentioned. More than 30 per cent of college students come from the most deprived areas, as Margaret McCulloch said. In colleges serving the most deprived areas, that figure can be more than 70 per cent. With 70,000 fewer students in the two years between 2008-09 and 2010-11, there can be no doubt that opportunities to get out of poverty are being lost. I do not believe that all those people were pursuing hobbies in flower arranging and basket weaving—to say so is insulting to 70,000 students who can no longer access further education.
My main point, which I raised at the committee meeting, is on articulation. Having lectured in economics for 20 years in further and higher education before coming to the Parliament, I am aware that many students—particularly mature students—do not want to commit to a four-year degree programme. A higher national certificate can be achieved in one year and a higher national diploma in two years. Those programmes are now more flexible, with many modules being achieved through distance learning. Over the past 20 years, students have been able to choose either to complete their degree in FE or to enter second or third year at university. Whether the cut to FE teaching is 16 or 25 per cent, how can the Government expect colleges to provide the same number of courses, teach and train the same number of students and maintain the same excellent standards as they have been doing?
Already, FE colleges are expected to—and do—achieve the same quality standards for a degree as universities, yet, as Professor Gallacher stated,
“there is clearly a major funding gap”—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 25 September 2012; c 1458.]
between the funding of university degrees and the funding of FE colleges. Why are the colleges being cut again?
I have very little time left, so I will make this my final point. At a time when further education is most needed, it is tragic if training, education and preparation for the labour market are lost. However, they are being lost, and the fault and responsibility for that lie with the Government.
15:58
When I read Liz Smith’s motion, I found it hard to believe that it came from the same Tory party that is in the process of savaging the UK’s further education budget by 32.3 per cent in real terms, as Marco Biagi told us. It is difficult to reconcile the two things.
Will the member take an intervention?
Not at the moment, thanks.
Perhaps the Tories have woken up from their long slumber and imagine that we are now in an independent Scotland where it might be credible for the Scottish Tories to say one thing and for the Tories south of the border to do another. Or perhaps, undaunted by Mr Obama’s recent election victory, they are merely following Mitt Romney’s maxim that, “You can fool some of the people all of the time and these are the ones we need to concentrate on.” Whatever the reason, the people of Scotland will not be fooled, as they have not been fooled by the Tories for many years. In fact, they have not been fooled since the last time there was major reform of the further education sector nearly 20 years ago.
It is worth reflecting on the shortcomings of the previous system, in which each college competed against its neighbours as if they were businesses in a free market and the concerns of education were often overshadowed by those of business. The reason why that system can never work is that it laboured under the restrictions of a zero-sum game, whereas genuine business relies on growth and open economies.
Will Mike MacKenzie tell me how much competition there is in the Highlands and Islands, which we both represent?
If Mary Scanlon is prepared to wait and listen to my speech, I will deal with that very point.
In the previous system, success was often measured by the success of the institution but not always by that of the students. A few colleges may have done well under that system, but others most certainly did not.
In answer to Mary Scanlon’s point, I say that I have personal experience from my previous life in business, when we had to send apprentices to a college in Glasgow. That particular college—it would be unfair to name it—was not doing well in business terms. I should say that I had no choice. I see that the cabinet secretary is wondering what I am getting at here [Interruption.] I ask members to be patient. I should add that that was before the flourishing Argyll College was established under the stewardship of Michael Breslin, the recently retired chief executive. Members will be pleased to hear that Mr Breslin is now putting his considerable talents to good use as an SNP councillor.
I return to the answer for Mary. Our apprentices received almost nothing in the way of education or training at that struggling college in the central belt. I had first-year apprentices quite proudly tell me—they used to do this often—that they had to show the lecturers how to do things.
Will the member take an intervention?
Not at the moment; I am still answering Mary’s question.
I ask Mike MacKenzie to use members’ full names, please.
On one occasion, I refused to sign off training modules as the apprentices had agreed with me that they had not achieved competence in those areas. The following week, the head of the department telephoned me, and he explained to me that I was missing the point. The point was, from his business perspective, that he would not receive the funding unless I signed off the modules that week. He had no real concern about the training and every concern for his budget. I can only assume that that became a more general problem, because the following year the practice of employers signing off training objectives was discontinued.
I am sorry to interrupt Mike MacKenzie’s very interesting story, but my experience as a tradesman and as an apprentice was completely different from that. I had fantastic training and a fantastic education at West Lothian College. He may have one isolated case, but to depict it as if it was what happened all over the sector is just rubbish.
I did not say that—I said that some colleges did well and that others did not.
I could go on at length and provide more examples— [Interruption.] Members will be glad to hear that I am not going to do that.
I must pay tribute to the cabinet secretary, because he is in the process of pulling off that most difficult of tasks—making a virtue out of necessity. We cannot pretend that the Scottish budget has not been cut. The only way to continue to deliver high-quality educational outcomes, while protecting student numbers, is by doing away with the unnecessary duplication that resulted in much wasted effort, with neighbouring colleges sometimes struggling with half-full classrooms as they competed with each other for students.
You must conclude.
In winding up, I must pause to reflect on the fact that Hugh Henry’s amendment seeks to add only one very small sentence to the Tory motion—
You really must stop.
Perhaps the Labour and Tory parties really are better together, because it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell them apart.
Members must keep to their six minutes.
16:05
I welcome the debate, because there is an absolute need for us to highlight what is going on in our colleges. I often say that I am delighted to speak in a debate, but I cannot say that I am delighted to speak in this one, because I take no delight in highlighting the effect that the SNP Government’s cuts are having on jobs, student numbers and courses.
Yesterday, the SNP claimed that the Labour Party was introducing a cuts commission. What we want is an honest debate about public services, and the truth is that the cuts are happening in our colleges right now. I know the impact that those cuts are having. They are taking away opportunities from young people, from women who wish to study part time and from people with learning disabilities. I have spoken to many students and staff about the effect that the cuts are having on them.
Worryingly, Audit Scotland identified the true extent of the cuts in its recent report on the challenges that the college sector faces. It said that the Scottish Government’s revenue support grant to colleges was likely to fall from £545 million in 2011-12 to £471 million in 2014-15. That represents a staggering real-terms reduction of 24 per cent. Figures that the Scottish Parliament information centre has produced show that funds for teaching have been reduced from £469 million in the academic year 2010-11 to £396 million in the academic year 2012-13, with more to come next year.
In my region, the west of Scotland, the cuts are having a serious impact. Reid Kerr College in Paisley has had its teaching grant cut from £14.4 million in 2011-12 to £13 million in 2012-13. That is a reduction of nearly 10 per cent and more than £1 million. The same can be said of Clydebank College. The SNP might try its best to keep those figures out of the public spotlight, but no amount of smoke and mirrors can disguise the impact that the cuts are having on our colleges. That is just what happened last year; more cuts are on their way.
In the spirit of the honest debate that Mr Bibby claims to want, he will know that, in a fixed budget, if funding for colleges is to be increased, funding elsewhere must be reduced. What funding would he cut to replace the college funding? I see that Mr Henry is offering him some advice in that regard.
Are you accepting a 24 per cent cut in college funding, Mr McDonald? We need to have a debate about what our priorities are. Colleges are not the SNP’s priority, because it is cutting the colleges budget by more than it is cutting practically any other budget. [Interruption.]
Order.
The SNP Government claims that its budget is a budget for growth and jobs. What a nonsense. We have high levels of unemployment and people are not getting the chance to retrain for another job. No wonder the Educational Institute of Scotland, Unison and the NUS have all said that the Government’s college cuts will put economic recovery at risk. No wonder businesses tell us that colleges cannot provide them with the services that they need. That is not because colleges are incapable of doing so; it is because of the severe cuts that they are having to deal with. It is obvious to pretty much everyone apart from the Scottish Government that college budgets and retraining opportunities should not be cut during an economic downturn, and that courses for young people should not be cut when there is a youth unemployment crisis and 100,000 young people cannot get a job.
We have heard about the disproportionate and shocking impact that the Government’s cuts are having on women. The Government’s decision to withdraw funding for many part-time, weekend and evening courses is also having a devastating effect on people with learning disabilities. I think that it is insulting to suggest, as Joan McAlpine has done, that the part-time courses that are being reduced are courses such as flower-arranging courses for an hour a week for people like her. We have a duty to protect and support the vulnerable.
Is the member seriously arguing that the large numbers of part-time hobby courses that were being provided in the past, as the cabinet secretary mentioned, are really appropriate for a time of high youth unemployment compared with a focus on young people and giving opportunities for all, which is where the focus now is?
I do not think that part-time courses for women or people with learning disabilities, which have been slashed, are hobby courses and it is insulting to refer to them in that way. [Interruption.]
Order.
Part-time courses for people with learning disabilities have been cut by 34 per cent, from 2,155 to 1,413 in those colleges that responded to the Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability survey. Some colleges have even cut all of their part-time places for such courses. The SCLD report also makes clear that many people with learning disabilities were given very little notice that their college place had been cut.
College courses form an important part of the lives of many people with learning disabilities. I want to highlight a response from students at Reid Kerr College in Paisley to the Scottish Government’s cuts in the recent consultation on the success of “The same as you?” policy framework, which aims to support people with learning disabilities so that they can lead full lives in their communities. The final question asks:
“What do you think are the things we need to do in the future to make the lives of people with learning disabilities better?”
Please conclude.
The response simply says:
“Bring back more college places. More courses and more staff.”
You must conclude.
It is about time that the cabinet secretary and his Government started listening.
16:11
Neil Findlay said in his intervention on Mike MacKenzie that the picture is perhaps not the same in every college across the country. I am going to paint a rather more positive picture than the one that I just heard from Neil Bibby, because I think that that was one of the most negative pictures that I have heard. We have heard that there is perhaps a consensus—even with the Labour Party—that reform is necessary. We need to try to look at how we address that reform and how we remain positive.
Aberdeen College and Banff and Buchan College entered into a contract—not a merger. It was a contract to try to achieve the best for their students, looking at the workplace in the whole of the north-east of Scotland. They were responding to the need for skills—skills that the business sector has been crying out for. The colleges are responding positively. Banff and Buchan College probably responded the most positively and should be commended for the way in which it responded. It tackled the gender issue to do with women and science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects. It introduced specific training for young girls and targeted its courses at getting young women on to such courses. It is working with Shell, BP and TAQA and with all the industries in the north-east to try to engender the skills that are needed for the future.
Aberdeen College responded in the same way. It is going out to businesses and seeking them out. There is a federation of colleges and universities now looking at where skills are needed and providing the appropriate courses to meet those skills needs.
The cabinet secretary mentioned the opportunities for all scheme—it is about opportunities for all and, in answer to Mr Bibby, I say that not every college turns its back on people with learning disabilities. It is absolutely unacceptable for any college to turn its back on any person with a learning disability, any other disability or any equality agenda issue.
The SCLD has conducted a survey that shows that part-time courses for people with learning disabilities have been cut by 34 per cent and that, in some colleges, all the part-time places for such courses have been cut. I recommend that Mr Robertson gets a copy of the survey report and looks into the matter.
Perhaps I should inform Mr Bibby that I cannot read such reports. I also suggest to Mr Bibby that the report only covered the respondents to the survey. Banff and Buchan College has specific courses for people with learning disabilities to get them back into the community and into work that is meaningful and which they can do within their communities.
The same applies to Aberdeen College, which again has to be commended for its equality action plan. It looks at equal opportunities across the whole spectrum—across gender, disability, ethnic minorities and so on. If Aberdeen College and Banff and Buchan College can do that, I cannot see why other colleges cannot. I think that I said that it is abhorrent for any college to turn its back on people. Mr Bibby may quote statistics to me; I am saying that it is unacceptable for any college to do that, and I hope that the cabinet secretary would address the problem with any college that was doing that.
The examples in the north-east are responding to what the business community is asking for. Every college in the country can do the same. Reform is necessary, and the examples of Aberdeen College and Banff and Buchan College are to be commended. I give them as exemplars to other colleges in the sector.
I remind members to speak through the chair and use full names.
16:16
This week, we saw the latest extraordinary twist in the cabinet secretary’s war on Scotland’s colleges. As far as we know, the facts are as follows. In a meeting at which there were some 80 to 100 people, the chair of a college board recorded the cabinet secretary’s speech for future reference. On hearing that, the cabinet secretary apparently had a tantrum. He ejected his toys from the pram, called the chair of the college to a meeting, was apparently reluctant even to shake his hand, and demanded his head. Those are not the actions of a responsible minister maintaining an arm’s-length relationship with the sector; they are the actions of a school playground bully, and they are all too typical of a cabinet secretary who is used to throwing his weight around and getting his own way on slashing budgets and forcing mergers, and now in petulantly demanding resignations. That typifies the SNP’s contemptuous approach to the education sector and, in particular, Mr Russell’s attitude.
A few weeks ago, the cabinet secretary came to the chamber and had the grace to stand up and say in relation to another matter that he was wrong. Would that he had the same grace and self-awareness to do the same today.
We are here to discuss the important issue of widening access in further education. That agenda is under threat from unprecedented cuts to the sector. There is a £73 million cut to the teaching grant across two years.
The member mentioned “unprecedented cuts”. Is the 32 per cent cut south of the border not a precedent?
I do not know whether the member has noticed that we are in the Scottish Parliament discussing the actions of the Scottish Government in relation to Scotland’s colleges. I wish that SNP members would focus on their responsibilities and those of their Government and their cabinet secretary. [Interruption.]
Order.
We all know about the concerns about the cuts. Concerns have been expressed by the Educational Institute of Scotland, Scotland’s Colleges and the National Union of Students. We know the consequence of the cuts on the widening access agenda. The figures are absolutely clear. The participation rate in further education in Scotland of the 20 per cent most deprived cohort has fallen from 83.3 per 1,000 in 2007-08 to 72.5 per 1,000 in 2010-11. The latest trends suggest that that rate will decline still further, of course.
As we have heard throughout the debate, there has been a disproportionate impact on women and older learners. As Liz Smith pointed out, since 2006-07 there has been a 26 per cent cut in the number of female learners, as opposed to a 13 per cent drop for men. The number of female learners is therefore falling at twice the rate as that for men, and the indications are that the changes that are going through will make things still worse. We also know that, because of the focus on providing education for those in the 16 to 21-year-old age range, older learners—many of whom have been in the workforce, have been made unemployed and are trying to retrain—cannot get college places, as those places are being allocated to 16 to 21-year-olds. There are real issues for the widening access agenda.
A number of SNP members have legitimately questioned refocusing the budget and where we would find the money. We are clear where we stand on that, and I will spell it out for the benefit of SNP members: we know that the FE college budget has been cut—it was raided to fund the universities—and we make no apology for saying again that we favour a modest graduate contribution in order to put funding into the university system. All the SNP is doing is providing free university education for the better off at the expense of those from less well-off backgrounds who cannot get college places—those are the facts.
We had the SNP mantra again today that university tuition fees deter those from less well-off backgrounds. Well, I checked the figures—
Will the member give way?
Oh, yes—I would be delighted to give way.
Let me put this as gently as I can: the member knows that south of the border 25,000 university places have been lost because of the fees that have been imposed, and the evidence is also clear that the majority of the people deterred are from the lowest-income groups. His proposal would narrow access to education.
The problem for the cabinet secretary is that he is talking absolute nonsense—as ever, it is assertion and not fact. I know that because I checked the figures before I came to the chamber. The participation rate at universities by the poorest 20 per cent in England and Wales is 10.6 per cent; in Scotland, the comparable figure is 9.1 per cent. The participation from those from less well-off backgrounds in England and Wales is higher than it is in Scotland, notwithstanding tuition fees. Despite the continual assertion by the cabinet secretary and his colleagues that tuition fees will deter people from less well-off backgrounds, that idea is utterly false—[Interruption.]
Ms Campbell.
The idea is utterly false because the graduate contribution was brought in with generous bursary schemes for those from less well-off backgrounds—that is undoubtedly the case, given the latest figures.
The other consequence that we know of—I will mention this only briefly, in view of the time—is the 18.5 per cent cut in places for the STEM subjects since 2007. To build the Scottish economy, we need people to train in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We should be building up places in those areas, not cutting them.
It is time for the cabinet secretary to end his war on further education in Scotland and it is time, frankly, for some humility from him in this chamber.
16:22
The cheek of a Tory to tell us how we should go about rebuilding the Scottish economy. I know that Murdo Fraser wanted to scrap the Conservative Party. Frankly, many people in Scotland wish that he had managed to achieve his aim. Who knows? Given the way things are going, he may yet get a second bite at that particular cherry.
I was pleased that Liz Smith acknowledged that there has been a cut to the Scottish budget. That was welcome, because her leader seldom acknowledges it, and her finance spokesperson does not acknowledge the cuts that are coming to the Scottish budget. Indeed, they go out of their way to pretend that the cuts are not happening. I therefore welcome the honesty brought to this debate by Liz Smith. Would that some of her colleagues would take a leaf out of her book.
At the same time, however, Liz Smith cannot come to the Parliament and realistically expect changes to be made to the funding landscape without shifting funds from other areas. I accept the points that were made in that regard, but what are the Conservatives doing? The Government in London ties our hands and picks our pockets. That is what is happening to the Scottish budget: our hands are tied in terms of how we can go about growing the economy, while at the same time this Parliament’s budget is being reduced.
The leader of the Conservative Party in Scotland made a speech in which she called for the tax take to be cut in Scotland. She wants income tax to be cut in Scotland, but not by just the 1p that would take £0.5 billion out of the Scottish budget, as possibly more than £1 billion would be taken out. The Conservatives then have the nerve to come to this Parliament and demand that we reinstate funding in some areas, while they are out there in the communities of Scotland calling for less money to be available to the Scottish Government. That is a deeply dishonest position to take. They should at least have a little bit of humility when they come to the chamber and make those demands.
Faced with the difficult choices that we are forced to take—it is interesting that those who come to the chamber and say that they want an honest debate about difficult choices are quick to run at the first sight of a debate about difficult choices—the cabinet secretary is driving forward reform of the college sector. I think that the regional approach will bring great benefits, not just to the sector but to the learners, who of course must be the most important people in this debate. It is worth noting that, even in these difficult times and faced with these difficult decisions, record funding is still being put into student support, which will ensure that students from vulnerable backgrounds can access further education without that being to their detriment. By contrast, in the situation south of the border, fees are crippling some people’s choices in higher and further education.
When Neil Bibby was having his little rant about the money that is being taken out of the college sector, I asked him, in the spirit of the honest debate that he claims that he and his party want to have, how he would reduce one budget so that he can consequentially increase another budget. Even though he phoned a friend and Mr Henry was at his ear telling him what answer to give, he could not come up with an answer.
The reason for that is simple: the answer would compromise another Labour front-bench spokesperson who comes to the Parliament to demand more money for their sector, to appease the people whom they seek to champion. All Labour is doing is deceiving people and leading them up the garden path by suggesting that if the Labour Party had its hands on the levers of power and the finances of the Parliament, there would somehow be an increase in available money and everyone could have more—
That is what you claim about independence.
If Mr Johnstone wants to intervene he is welcome to do so. He asks about independence. We know that with independence we would be able to take decisions and use the full levers of the economy to grow our economy in Scotland. We would not be faced with the reductions in our capital budget that the Conservatives are foisting on us from Westminster, which are forcing us to take creative and welcome decisions in the Scottish budget to shift from resource to capital.
It is worth remembering the large amount of capital funding for colleges. I often hear members pooh-pooh that, as if it is somehow not relevant. I commend to members of all parties the new state-of-the-art facility at Banff and Buchan College. They should take the opportunity to visit the college and hear about the improved staff morale and student experience and, most crucial, the reduced costs of the building. In a time of revenue constraint, the capital budget should be used to reduce revenue running costs, through development of new facilities or—as in the case of Aberdeen College at Gallowgate—refurbished facilities, which will permit the reinvestment in the front line of revenue that was being used to run inefficient buildings.
I refer the member to paragraph 39 of the Audit Scotland report, “Scotland’s colleges: Current finances, future challenges”, which was published last month. If capital funding is so wonderful, why does the Auditor General for Scotland point out that there is
“a real-terms reduction of 45.5 per cent”
in funding for capital projects?
I direct the member to my previous comments about the decision that her colleagues at Westminster took to slash the capital budget that is available to the Parliament—[Interruption.]
Order.
The Conservative Party cannot come to the Parliament and expect us, without having control over the economy, to perform financial magic and make more money appear.
We are refocusing the college agenda. We are reforming and regionalising, while delivering new facilities, which will improve the learner experience. In the north-east, a creative approach to partnership working with the private sector, which Dennis Robertson talked about, will deliver for learners and should be welcomed.
I remind members that they should not shout out from sedentary positions, and speakers that they should not respond to such interventions.
16:28
I am delighted to speak in the debate, because I have always been involved in higher education.
I wish Stow College well. I hope that it overcomes the issues that it currently faces, and I hope that the situation does not affect staff morale and students’ academic futures.
I have always been keen to promote the value of Scottish colleges, in Glasgow, in Scotland and internationally. Scotland’s Rural University College works in Lahore and other cities in Pakistan, and the City of Glasgow College works in Karachi and Lahore. We have a proud history of engaging with cities and countries overseas, and I thank our colleges for the wonderful job that they do and for facing up to the current challenges.
There can be no doubt that colleges provide access to education to a diverse range of people, through flexible learning models and a broad subject choice. That flexibility has an effect on social mobility. People from minority communities and people with disabilities benefit from college education, and students from diverse areas attend colleges and universities.
Several college mergers have taken place, and there will be more. In previous mergers, there has been support for our colleges to enable them to transfer to the new model, but that will not happen on this occasion. We are saying to our colleges that they will have to deal with those issues with current resources, and that is a huge challenge for colleges in a time of cuts. We are going through such a harsh economic situation just now, and saying to colleges that they must deal with the matter themselves places a huge burden on them.
As young people have to compete in an increasingly harsh labour market, there is a rising demand for college places. We have heard that there is a waiting list of people who want to go to colleges to retrain. I have heard various comments today about “hobby courses”, but I do not know what those are. To me, any learning is learning, and when people learn, they can apply themselves.
We give a lot of credit and credence to industry and businesses, but we do not seem to understand that we are a country of entrepreneurs. There are people who are self-employed, who earn a great deal of respect and money for this country. They also need education, and such education does not need to be focused, as we need people to be able to choose subjects. Flexibility and choice of subjects are important, as the fewer subjects we have, the less we have to offer and the more we deny our young the opportunities that they need.
I do not really care what happens down south, or in Ireland, Iceland or the Netherlands. I care what happens in Scotland, and in Glasgow. I know that our young need jobs, and that they need to be professional. If we want to attract industry from overseas, we need a professional workforce, and for that we need colleges and courses. To pretend anything different is useless, and we should not go there.
It is very important for us to ensure that we represent the needs of our communities. The idea of pulling parties down and trawling through people’s figures is not what this is about. We need to do a job, in the sense that we want to provide for our young and for our future, and we can do that only if we provide a service.
There are challenges with regard to how we deal with those issues. One or two members in the chamber have asked Opposition members, “What would you do to fund colleges?” The Government should not bring forward a policy, go through this charade of a debate, and then just pass it on. It should speak to people and share ideas, and come up with conclusions and solutions that are fit for purpose.
We all say that we have free education in our universities, but what about our colleges? If people cannot get into a college, they will have to pay to go somewhere else, so it is not free. Free is only free if someone can get access and can have the opportunity to study, and they will not get that if we go down the road that we are going down just now.
The member has one minute left.
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
We must come up with solutions, but they have to be genuine. We must work with people with open hearts and minds. Young people deserve the best that is available. We know that we can provide that, as we have a rich history in the area. We do not need to prove to ourselves that we are in a position to do it. We can do it, we have done it before and we will do it in the future, but we must be focused. We should forget the narrowness of party-political broadcasts and actually deliver a service to the people who need it.
I apologise to the one member whom I have been unable to call. We now come to closing speeches.
16:34
Hugh Henry eloquently described the value of Scotland’s colleges, and I know about that value because I have benefited greatly from a vocational and academic education in college. In light of a whole range of issues that have arisen, I and many other people involved in Scottish education have grave concerns.
It is our duty to hold the Government to account for its actions or, indeed, lack of them. Across so many areas of the skills, learning and employment agenda, the Government’s policies appear—superficially—to be heading in the right direction. However, when they are exposed to even the most rudimentary scrutiny, they can be seen for the illusion that they are.
Let us look at the smoke and mirrors we have witnessed with the modern apprenticeships programme, or the manipulation of positive outcomes data to include activity agreements, or the decline of the careers service. Ministers and their spin machine tell us that everything is going just splendidly. It is all a huge success, and anyone who dares to question any of it is being negative and—the old chestnut—talking Scotland down. Well, I say that we are standing up for Scotland’s young people and supporting Scottish education by advocating for those who raise their concerns with us because they fear to raise them with the Government—because, if they do, they will get the Russell treatment.
Mr Findlay talked about the modern apprenticeship figures. What message does it send to a young person who is undertaking an apprenticeship when they hear that they somehow stole a job from someone who was in the job when they undertook their apprenticeship?
I have not got a clue what the member is referring to, but I am sure that we will come to talk about modern apprenticeships over the next couple of weeks.
Some of the worst damage is occurring in the area of college provision. We need to be clear that this is an area of policy that has been drawn up, promoted, implemented and defended by the cabinet secretary for education and culture.
Not culture.
The policy of regionalisation does not have improvement at its core; it has cost cutting as its driving principle. The cabinet secretary claims that his policy will result in significant financial savings, but he provides no evidence whatsoever to back his assertion. As Liz Smith said, he claims that there are no waiting lists, but Scotland’s colleges tell us that 21,000 are on waiting lists. He says that there are no budget cuts, but Audit Scotland tells us that there has been a 24 per cent cut over the spending review period. What was the cabinet secretary’s response? They are all wrong.
We heard that today in his speech, but why should we be surprised?
Will the member give way?
Not at the moment. Do something uncharacteristic and listen, for a change.
Why should we be surprised? The cabinet secretary has form in that area. Time and again, the Education and Culture Committee has heard witnesses give evidence, with the media providing supporting information, about 1,400 job losses across the sector in the past year; the loss of 30,000 places for women students; 70,000 fewer part-time places for adult learners and others; and, as Mr Bibby said, an overall cut of 34 per cent of places for young people who have learning difficulties.
Will the member take an intervention?
Not at the moment; I have a lot to say.
Of course, according to the cabinet secretary, all those figures are wrong. Perhaps I will now extend him the opportunity to apologise to the 30,000 women mentioned by Anne McTaggart and to the hundreds of students with learning difficulties who Mr Bibby mentioned. I am happy to give him the opportunity to apologise if he would like to do so.
I take the opportunity to say that I have never said that there were no cuts, so the member has misrepresented me. There have been cuts, and they were necessary because of the financial pressure that was started by Labour and continued by the Tories and Lib Dems. However, despite what the member is saying, we will end up with a better sector.
I did not quite catch the apology there.
Members will recall that last year, after an extensive campaign by students, college unions and the Labour Party, some extra cash was allocated to the college budget when the finance secretary announced an additional £15 million in the college transformation fund. To be fair, that fund has enabled transformation to occur in our colleges. Most notably, 1,400 lecturers and support staff have been transformed from full-time employees to people who are on the dole. College employees could well do without such career transformations.
Mary Scanlon mentioned the 24 per cent budget cut, which means fewer lecturers, larger classes, cuts and closures in courses, and growing waiting lists. Despite the evidence, the cabinet secretary claims that there is nothing wrong. Like the Walter Mitty figure that he is, he dismisses what is happening in the real world and continues to think in his fantasy land that everyone is going along with him.
The cabinet secretary could never be described as a modest man who is lacking in self-admiration, and I was surprised yesterday that, rather than welcome the opportunity to spread the word about all the good work that he is doing in colleges, he uncharacteristically sought to prevent others from hearing his sparkling oratory. So determined was he to keep his utterances quiet that he exploded in frustration at not having the powers to sack Mr Ramsay.
Mr Findlay, you must come to a conclusion.
I am sorry, Presiding Officer. I was just getting to my punchline, but I will leave the cabinet secretary wounded without putting in the fatal blow.
I call Angela Constance, who has a tight eight minutes. [Interruption.] Order.
16:40
At a core level, for me the ultimate purpose of education is to prepare young people for work, to stand on their own two feet and for an adult life in which they can provide for themselves and their families, make their own way in the world and be independent.
As Mark McDonald said, it is imperative—in fact, it is crucial—that any debate that we have on education should not take place in isolation from what is happening in our economy. One reason for my appointment as the first-ever Minister for Youth Employment was to ensure a better alignment between the world of education and the world of work. We cannot look at the supply of skills in education and training in isolation from the demand for those skills.
For two years, as a junior minister over three portfolios, I have reported to Michael Russell.
Lucky you.
This is where experience and facts come into things. I report to Mr Russell as a junior minister and as a woman. I do not recognise some of the language that has been bandied about in the chamber today about a colleague whom I have worked with and reported to for two years. It is scurrilous and a slur on his character that members of the Parliament have succumbed to such depths.
To be frank, I give Mr Russell far more cheek daily than I would ever dare to give Mr Swinney.
Will the minister—
No, thanks.
Will the minister take an intervention?
No, thanks.
Not even about the 10,000—
No.
Mr Henry, Ms Constance is not taking an intervention.
I want to stick to the facts and the debate’s purpose. I was pleased that Liz Smith recognised that we are living with the reality of Tory cuts. We are indeed making tough decisions now and we are indeed reforming public services such as colleges. However, we are maintaining our priorities, which include student numbers—the full-time equivalents, not the dodgy Labour Party figures.
We are prioritising young people in the context of maintaining student numbers. We have record levels of student support, which is second to none anywhere in these islands, and we are maintaining the volume of teaching. We have opportunities for all and we have retained benefits such as the education maintenance allowance.
There is no denying that there are budget reductions but, by the end of our second term of office, we will have invested £5 billion in the college sector, although our budget has been slashed by £3.3 billion. It is interesting that we will spend 40 per cent more on FE in cash terms than our Labour-Liberal predecessors did, even though their budget went up by £10 billion.
I raise that because the Labour Party, along with its Liberal colleagues, should have reformed the crucial college sector at a time of comparative plenty, but it chose not to do so. What did that increased investment achieve in the first decade of devolution? Do we have a first-class, world-class vocational education system that is highly regarded by young people, trade unions and employers alike?
Do we have a world-class vocational education system that is on a par with those of Germany, Austria, Norway and the Netherlands? Do we have a country that, like those northern European countries, has youth unemployment at less than 10 per cent? That is exactly what we should be aspiring to.
Important points were made during the debate about women’s participation in education, but the facts are that the majority of students in further education are women—the figure is 54 per cent, as Liz Smith conceded—and colleges continue, and will continue, to offer a vast range of flexible training opportunities. The Government has boosted childcare funds by 42 per cent since 2006-07. We can stand firm and proud, given our record. Our ambition is in recognition of the fact that those from disadvantaged backgrounds are still underrepresented in further and higher education, and that is exactly what we intend to tackle.
A group of people that are dear to my heart are adults with learning difficulties, because I started my social work career working in residential care with adults with learning difficulties nearly 20 years ago. It is such a pity that Mr Bibby and Mr Findlay are relying on a report—Mr Findlay is waving it around—that is a year old and which pre-dates the introduction of the opportunities for all initiative.
Let me reiterate what Dennis Robertson said and reiterate my commitment. Opportunities for all is for every young person in this country—
Will the minister give way?
No, thank you. The member has been shouting in my ear all afternoon, but he will not get to showboat on my time.
Students with difficulties will be supported on any course that they are admitted to. Colleges are highly skilled in such support, and I, for one, do not believe in segregation.
We have a good education offering in Scotland. It is not perfect and it needs to be refined and reformed, but we are preparing our young people better than ever before for the world of work. We can look at positive destinations and at the academic achievements of our young people, but what they need now is the opportunity to work, so this debate should be about the economy and who controls it.
Over and above our £2.5 billion year-on-year investment in post-16 education and training, the Government will spend an additional £80 million on supporting young people towards and into work. That will benefit an additional 23,000 young people—and that is before we get to the 16,700 modern apprentices under the age of 25 or we count the young people who are benefiting from a college education or opportunities for all. However, the reality is that we need to help tens of thousands more young people, and the answer to that lies in our economy.
Liz Smith touched on choices.
Will the minister give way?
No. I am in my last minute.
I will happily defend our choices. We should be making the choice to invest additional money in an employer recruitment incentive that will get our young people into work. I wonder whether the Opposition parties will be honest about their choices. How much more money do they want for further education and from where should we make the cuts? Perhaps Mr Brown will answer that in his closing speech.
You must finish, minister.
Of course, colleges themselves have choices, including about the £200 million reserves that they have.
Before I call Gavin Brown, I note what Ms Constance said about language at the start of her speech. I intend to have the record checked for unparliamentary language, and I remind all members that, in the chamber, they should be courteous and respectful. The people whom they represent expect nothing less.
16:49
I will begin by looking at the budget for Scotland versus the budget for colleges and further education. Many statistics have been bandied about this afternoon, but I get the clear impression that very few of those who quoted economic and budget statistics have actually read any budget document.
First, I will pick out the Scottish cash-terms departmental expenditure limit budget. In 2011-12, at the start of the spending review period, the entire DEL budget for Scotland was £28.3 billion; for the 2013-14 financial year that we are debating at the moment, the entire DEL budget is £28.4 billion. That is a very modest increase in cash terms—it is, as Liz Smith acknowledged, a real-terms cut—but it is still a real-terms increase in cash over the course of the spending review period. Let us contrast that with the position for colleges in Scotland. In 2011-12, the budget for colleges was £570 million; next year, it will be £511 million, a cut of £60 million in cash terms at a time when, in cash terms, the Scottish budget as a whole is going up. Can anyone on the SNP benches explain to me how colleges are a priority if they are getting a drastic cut, when the budget is going up in cash terms?
Another worrying statistic that the Opposition has highlighted time and again in this debate is the 70,000 drop in headcount in just two years. Every one of us in the chamber, not least the Government, needs to look deeply at that alarming figure. Angela Constance had the audacity to say at the end of her speech that we need to help tens of thousands more. What about the 70,000 people in Scotland who no longer have access to college?
A point that I made at the beginning of my speech and which a number of members raised in the debate—and which I now make again seriously—is that when we look at college numbers we have to look not at headcount but at full-time equivalents. Only when we look at full-time equivalents do we get a figure for those who are going to college. A failure to do that completely distorts the figures.
I do not know whether Mike Russell was listening to Mike Russell’s speech at the start of the debate, but to suggest that the only statistic that matters is the one that completely ignores three quarters of the people in our colleges is patently absurd. The cabinet secretary nonchalantly wafted away the fact that we have had a 70,000 cut in headcount in two years, describing it as a rather “volatile” statistic and suggesting that it did not matter that the figure had gone down by 70,000. However, it does matter. The figure was 374,000 just two years ago and has gone down to 305,000. If it is, as Mike Russell seems to think, just one of those volatile things, is he suggesting that when we get next year’s figure it will have gone up by 70,000—or is it more likely that the figure will have gone down again?
We had a couple more corkers from the Government and SNP members over the course of the afternoon. I find it a little churlish to dismiss entirely that which went before. Yes, the college system was not perfectly run before; yes, things ought to change; and yes, we should always strive to be better. However, to dismiss the system almost in its entirety does a great disservice to many wonderful staff and students across the country. Mr Russell said that there was division among staff before he came along. Well, the great healer has united parties in this chamber and staff the length and breadth of this country—just not in the way that he thinks. To describe, as Mr Russell and Joan McAlpine did, part-time courses as hobby courses does an enormous disservice. If any SNP member wants to stand up and tell the chamber which hobby courses ought to be cut and which colleges are running hobby courses, I will agree to the request with alacrity.
It is difficult to pick the most absurd comment that was made, but I note that Angela Constance and Marco Biagi think that the solution to our college crisis is to spend the reserves. We should not worry about what might come in the future; if we spend those reserves, everything will be absolutely fine.
The budget that is given to the colleges is extremely important. At First Minister’s question time last week we heard the First Minister trying to wriggle free by comparing the current college budget with the college budget under the previous Labour and Liberal Democrat Executive—not that Executive’s last budget, though, but the budget from 1999. He suggested that because the budget that the colleges are getting next year is bigger than the 1999 budget they should feel jolly lucky and fortunate about all that they have. I had a quick look at the last budget from the Labour and Liberal Democrat Executive. In 2007-08, funding for FE colleges was £526 million. In 2014-15, at the end of the spending review, the funding for FE colleges will be £470 million. That is a pretty big reduction from 2007-08.
We have heard this said time and again, but it is worth repeating the real-terms position on colleges: there is a real-terms cut to the Scottish DEL budget over the spending review period. We have said that in the chamber before and Liz Smith said it again today. There is in fact a 6 per cent real-terms cut to the Scottish DEL budget over the course of the spending review. However, the real-terms cut to colleges between 2011-12 and 2014-15 is not 6, 10 or 12 per cent, but 24 per cent. If colleges are genuinely a priority for this Government, how on earth can it have a 24 per cent real-terms cut for colleges when there is a 6 per cent real-terms cut in the budget as a whole?
It is not just Opposition parties that are worried about what is happening to colleges. We have heard a number of quotes from SNP members over the course of the afternoon, but what is interesting is that the only quotes that they could produce were those that supported in principle the idea of mergers, regionalisation and change. What they have been unable to quote is a single source that thinks that next year’s college budget is a good idea. Those two things are not the same. Jeremy Peat, who gave evidence to the Finance Committee on 3 October, said:
“I like the structural changes that are going through and I believe that substantial efficiency gains can come from them but, as I said earlier, I worry about whether the resource will be available for the skills development end of FE on a lifetime learning basis. You”—
he was addressing the committee—
“should ensure that that is addressed as a priority, because it is important.”—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 3 October 2012; c 1678.]
The Education and Culture Committee heard from Professor Jim Gallacher that it would be difficult to maintain the quality of provision under the current circumstances. As Mary Scanlon pointed out, when Audit Scotland looked at the issue in greater depth, it said that
“the Scottish Government should provide a clear assessment of the expected benefits and costs of regionalisation including structural change, how these benefits contribute to its reform objectives and how costs are to be funded”.
We had not had that from the Scottish Government and we still have not had it.
Elizabeth Smith outlined in her motion one of the consequences of the savage cuts to college budgets. If we have drastic cuts, we will narrow access instead of widening it. I have touched already on the decrease in the total headcount over the course of two years. However, as Elizabeth Smith pointed out, there has been a 26 per cent decline in female students since 2007 compared to a 13 per cent decline in male students. That is another statistic that should deeply worry us all. Again, though, it was nonchalantly dismissed by the cabinet secretary and others.
Will the member take an intervention?
The member does not have time.
I am in my final minute, so I am afraid that I am unable to do so.
I close with a quote from John Henderson that Elizabeth Smith also touched on. He said:
“One of the enormous strengths of the college system is its ability to cater for a diverse range of students at different times in their lives. Any narrowing of that risks limiting the opportunities available.”
The Scottish Government has to think again about its draft budget and take seriously the concerns that have been expressed today. I am very happy to conclude this debate and support Elizabeth Smith’s motion.